What date did the change to Avios redemption happen?

[Ant68]

I used an old style 241 companion voucher to book first class to the USA West Coast and back. I made the booking on December 20th last year. Due to a death in the family I’ve had to cancel the flights. I was initially advised by BA to cancel and rebook in the same phone call but when I went to do that the agent offered to change the existing reservation rather than cancel and start again.
There was no first class availability on the return leg so I’m now going out in first and back in club. I was surprised to be charged an extra 5k avios for the downgrade. Did the avios devaluation happen between December 20th and now?

Oh, and as it has to be manually ticketed, does anyone know how long that takes? I can’t select seats until that’s done.

[NorthernLass]

Sorry to hear about your bereavement. Keep an eye on the ticketing, it can take a week or so but sometimes it slips through the system which causes big problems if it’s not picked up.
The crazy thing about the new pricing is that a mix of F and CW is now more avios than both legs in first. I would have thought you might get some refund on the surcharges though.

[Ant68]

NorthernLass wrote:

Sorry to hear about your bereavement. Keep an eye on the ticketing, it can take a week or so but sometimes it slips through the system which causes big problems if it’s not picked up.
The crazy thing about the new pricing is that a mix of F and CW is now more avios than both legs in first. I would have thought you might get some refund on the surcharges though.

Apparently not – the taxes and fees are the same for Club and First, I was told. So I need to pay the £70 change fee and the extra 5k avios.

Thanks for the advice on the manual ticketing. I think I’d have been better off cancelling and rebooking rather than changing the existing booking, as that would have been cleaner and I don’t think it would have cost any more. I’d have had the new booking by now and would be able to reserve seats.

The good thing about companion vouchers is the ease of cancellation. I guess if we’d have had a cash booking we’d have been covered by cancellation insurance (possibly); I’m not aware of any insurance that covers devaluation of reward points if you have to change reward flights.

Perhaps I’m not making sense … I need to focus on replanning rather than whingeing 🙂